Drug WarRant

When I started this blog back in 2003, I would have been shocked to see an article titled Legal Recreational Marijuana: Not So Far Out in Time Magazine.

I also would not have expected to see regular, smart columns about drugs and drug policy by someone like Maia Szalavitz in Time.

But time moves on and so does our discourse. My mom loves to clip positive articles about drug policy reform that she finds in her local paper and save them for me. Even she gets excited about the increased awareness.

Speaking of Time…

I was reminded today of this powerful and outstanding OpEd by the creators of The Wire which ran in Time Magazine in 2008: The Wire’s War on the Drug War

Worth a re-read.

If asked to serve on a jury deliberating a violation of state or federal drug laws, we will vote to acquit, regardless of the evidence presented. Save for a prosecution in which acts of violence or intended violence are alleged, we will — to borrow Justice Harry Blackmun’s manifesto against the death penalty — no longer tinker with the machinery of the drug war. No longer can we collaborate with a government that uses nonviolent drug offenses to fill prisons with its poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens.

We all like a good fisking here, and I enjoy doing it immensely, but today will be satisfied with some wonderful jobs done by others.

Scot Morgan has done a hilariously accurate job with What if Day Care Workers Get Stoned on Marijuana and Kill Children?, which is based on a letter someone wrote to their newspaper opposing marijuana legalization:

What about the children’s day care workers? If they smoke it and their senses are dulled by its use and they drop little Johnny on his head, whose fault is it now? If it’s legalized, there is no crime and no recourse for problems it causes.

Scott rips it apart and I particularly loved this moment of snark:

Fortunately, things aren’t actually that bad in real life, especially if you’re not a paranoid idiot. For example, our foremost concerns about bad things happening at day care centers can be resolved satisfactorily in almost every case simply by choosing a facility with a good reputation for not killing the children.

…

Over at the International Harm Reduction Assocation blog, they’ve got Child rights debates in drug policy deserve better than this. IHRA takes on a paper written by Drug Free Australia’ Josephine Baxter, vice president of the World Federation Against Drugs. The paper is The rights of the child: Ensuring a ‘child-centred’ drug policy is a vital human rights issue for those who influence drug policy

The weakness of the paper, especially given its international law focus, is evident from the first sentence:

“Global drug issues (including manufacture and trafficking of illicit substances) have been controlled through cooperative efforts of many countries, within the framework of the United Nations Drug Control Conventions for 100 years’

See the problem? The United Nations was founded in 1945, for starters. It will be 100 years old in thirty three years. What’s more, the current model came into being in 1961. Earlier conventions were far less restrictive including legally regulated models for opium. Many substances weren’t included until the 1960s, others in the 1970s and others still in the 1980s and 1990s.

The paper goes on to list these 100 year old conventions, starting at 1961.

Baxter throws around non-existent words like unlaterally and unequivably in contexts that don’t even connect to what correct versions of those words would mean.

The problems go on and on… As IHRA notes:

This is lazy, clumsy stuff. Child rights debates in drug policy deserve better.

Interesting article by Amanda Feilding of the Beckley Foundation in the Guardian: Magic mushrooms, international law and the failed ‘war on drugs’.

It’s actually two OpEds in one — the first being about the failed war on drugs and efforts within the world community to push back against the drug conventions, either through finding the “wiggle room” or through amending them.

The other is about the fascinating research into the effects of psilocybin on the brain.

Many users of psychedelics report the experience as a consciousness-expanding one, and conventional wisdom suggests that such drugs should increase brain activity and blood flow to the brain.

Instead, the research in PNAS showed that psilocybin decreased blood flow to specific regions of the brain that act as “connector hubs”, where information converges and from where it is disseminated. In the paper, we suggest that these hubs normally facilitate efficient communication between brain regions by filtering out the majority of input in order to avoid over-stimulation and confusion. But the hubs also constrain brain activity by forcing traffic to use a limited number of well-worn routes. Psilocybin appears to lift some of these constraints, allowing a freer and more fluid state of consciousness.

In the second study, subjects were given cues to recall positive events in their lives. With psilocybin, their memories were extremely vivid, almost as if they were reliving the events rather than just imagining them.

The findings suggest potential uses for psilocybin in the treatment of depression

We haven’t talked much about magic mushrooms here, but certainly psilocybin is an unfortunate victim of the war on drugs. It’s one of the most harmless of the illicit drugs (and less harmful than most licit drugs) and one that has some of the highest potential for beneficial use.

Certainly, at the very least, restrictions should be eased to make it easier to do research on psilocybin.

I got a kick out of Professor David Nutt’s comment (Nutt has called for legalizing psilocybin and has often been criticized as being “pro-drug” in his call for a rational harm scale on drugs):

“I’m not recommending anyone taking any drugs. I’m just suggesting we need to have a more scientific rational approach to drugs and vilifying drugs like psilocybin whilst at the same time actively promoting much more dangerous drugs like alcohol is totally stupid scientifically.”

I’ve long been an opponent of mandatory workplace drug testing, either for pre-screening or random suspicion-less testing. I would never work for a company that requires it.

For one thing, workplace drug testing establishes a relationship that says the employee (and his/her body) is somehow “property” of the company, rather than a valued contributor. Additionally, workplace drug testing shows a lack of management competence, relying on flawed tests that don’t even distinguish between impairment and non-impairment, when any supervisor that has even a modicum of capability can identify an impaired employee without a test.

Why would I want to work for a company that is incompetent and considers me property?

The big lie of workplace drug testing is that it is necessary for workplace safety and to reduce workplace accidents. This is how the drug-free workplace program has been sold all across the country to the huge financial benefit of drug-testing companies, and to the detriment of the individual and the corporation that ends up paying in drug testing costs and loss of employee trust.

For many years, those who pushed for workplace drug testing touted the “Firestone Study” which supposedly claimed that:

“Recreational drug users are five times more likely to file a workers’ compensation claim and 3.7 times more likely to be involved in workplace accidents than other workers”

That was repeated uncritically in government workshops and webpages as fact (as well as in testimony to Congress). The only problem is that there was no “Firestone Study.” Researchers were able to track this mythical study to remarks from Firestone’s medical director about something else entirely.

After a number of calls and queries I received a two page document from Firestone’s Medical Director, E. Gates Morgan. The report apears to be an in-house newsletter. In it, a Mr. Ed Johnson is interviewed about the Employer Assistance Program (“EAP”) at Firestone. There are some statements pertaining to absenteeism, but these are not documented, and more importantly, refer only to a few alcoholics who have been served by the Firestone EAP. The statistics generated (if these calculations based on alcoholics were actually made) have nothing to do with drug users, recreational or otherwise.

The statistics cited about absenteeism and workers’ compensation claims may have been derived from interviews with alcoholic workers enrolled in the EAP at Firestone. These people were not identified by urine testing for alcohol, but were referred because they or others perceived that their lives were falling apart. They, unlike workers randomly tested for drug use, were dysfunctional. To use them as a justification for testing unimpaired workers is like demanding that all workers have mandatory periodic rectal temperatures taken because a case of tuberculosis was found in the workplace.

A 1994 review by the National academy of sciences said that “Despite beliefs to the contrary, the preventive effects of drug-testing programs have never been adequately demonstrated. … The data obtained in worker population studies, do not provide clear evidence of the deleterious effects of drugs other than alcohol on safety and other job performance indicators.”

Today, the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation reports on a study by the National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction (NCETA) at Flinders University. There is a fact sheet and the full study (pdf).

The fact sheet notes:

Does workplace testing improve workplace safety?

Evidence is inconclusive regarding the efficacy of drug testing in reducing workplace accidents and injuries. While some studies suggest that testing can reduce injury and accident rates, more rigorous studies indicate testing has only a small effect or no effect at all. Claims that workplace testing can substantially reduce workplace injuries, accidents and compensation claims are not supported by the available research evidence.

The ADLRF goes on to give some good reasons for opposing drug place testing.

Here’s another bit from the study that I found interesting:

While there is evidence that alcohol and drugs play a role in workplace accidents and injuries, there is also a growing body of evidence indicating other factors may play a more important role such as:

• fatigue
• noise
• dirt
• dangerous working conditions
• conflict at work
• poor working conditions and procedures
• poorly maintained equipment
• insufficient training and supervision of employees.

And this:

Distinguishing between workplace and workforce use is important when establishing workplace safety risk. Workers who consume alcohol or drugs away from the workplace and who do not return to work until the effects of consumption (e.g., intoxication, hangover, fatigue) have dissipated are unlikely to be a direct risk to safety. By contrast, consumption during (or just prior to) work hours or consumption at the workplace after work hours, is more likely to produce a direct safety and/or productivity risk.

Past research concerning workers’ alcohol and drug use has generally failed to adequately differentiate workforce from workplace alcohol and other drug use. Similarly, substance use and substance impairment are very different, as use alone does not automatically infer impairment.

The report also had this to say about testing technology:

The most common types of testing technologies used in the workplace are breath analysis, urinalysis, and saliva testing. All three test technologies have limitations. Apart from breath analysis, which can detect alcohol intoxication, no other workplace drug test can detect intoxication or impairment. Urinalysis is particularly problematic due to its inability to distinguish between recent and past drug use.

I’d like to see someone challenge the Department of Labor with this information. Let’s establish policies based on fact and science and not on adding profits to the drug testing companies.

Very weird watching this commercial in the Super Bowl.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGgosT-v5sw

The bizarrely silly musical “Sheep’s on the Lamb” (for which I am leading the orchestra, playing keyboard and penny whistle) opened last night to cheers from the good-sized house. Our final performance is tonight.

Here’s a fun video from the Daily Show that nicely lampoons the Florida welfare drug-testing law.

In preparation for the Superbowl, here are some classic old ONDCP Superbowl ads.

• ONDCP: Drug, Anti-Terror
• ONDCP: Drug, Anti-Terror 2
• ONDCP: Subway Ride
• ONDCP: Knocked Up

Video: Feel the horror of going through a SWAT drug raid with children in the house. And these were actually pretty nice cops. But it sure doesn’t excuse this kind of raid.

Thanks for the nice mention from @alejoalberdi, who calls Drug WarRant “modelo de lucidez y compromiso en la lucha contra la idiotez prohibicionista.”

Heckled during speech, Mexico’s president defends drug war

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has once again clashed with a citizen angry about the effects of the country’s drug war, this time during a speech in which a man in the audience shouted, “How many more dead?” […]

“The deaths in the country are because of the criminal organizations, criminal organizations that are recruiting young people like you, for addictions, for criminal gangs, to kill other young people,” Calderon responded.

“If you or others presume that the Mexican government — my government — would cross its arms and watch as they attack the young people of Mexico, as they kidnap them, as they extort them, you are very mistaken.”

The audience, mostly men and women in business suits, applauded enthusiastically. Many gave him a standing ovation.

Subsequent reports said Moreno had announced his plans to challenge Calderon on his Facebook account. After the event in Guadalajara, the man was surrounded by audience members who scolded him, one report said.

This is a follow-up to the previous post about “evil.”

The man interrupting was asking a question loaded with content, dealing with such things as policy options, international agreements, proper use of military, how to respond to violence without increasing the violence, etc.

What he got in response from President Calderon was a calculatedly childish good-vs-evil (and therefore nothing more to discuss) response.

It’s the same as the “if you don’t support prohibition, you want to surrender” meme. It’s purpose is to falsely eliminate the existence of any other options. If it’s evil, you must fight it. It blocks even discussing ways of stopping or reducing the “evil” through other means (that might actually work!)

It is absolutely offensive for President Calderon to imply that the interrupter would want his government to “cross its arms and watch as they attack the young people of Mexico, as they kidnap them, as they extort them.” In fact, that’s why he was speaking up. He wants his government to actually do something that will work, instead of doing something that fuels more violence.

And yet, with Calderon’s good-vs-evil words, the simple-minded people in suits gave him a standing ovation and scolded the poor man who truly wanted to know “How many more dead?”

I assume most of you have used a chain saw or been next to one that was in operation. It’s loud. As a tool, it’s pretty darn terrifying and its destructive capability is intense.

We need to do a better job of getting the average citizen to picture themselves in this all-too-real situation:

Oops. FBI Uses Chain Saw on Wrong Door

Judy Sanchez, of Fitchburg, says she awoke to heavy footsteps in the stairwell on Jan. 26 and walked into her kitchen in time to see a blade chop through her door.

“I took two steps, face the second door, and I heard the click of a gun, and saying, ‘FBI, get down,’ so I laid down on my living room floor,” Sanchez told WHDH.com. “I was screaming, ‘You have the wrong apartment, you have the wrong apartment,’ over fifty times. And then I seen the big blade coming down my door.”

She says she was held face-down on the floor at gunpoint while her 3-year-old daughter Ji’anni cried in another room. […]

Sanchez says she and her daughter now have trouble sleeping. The mom told WHDH she now sleeps with a baseball bat next to her bed.

Our home is our most sacred place of refuge. The place where we’re supposed to feel safe, comfortable, and private. With the mass production of drug war raids, this kind of thing can happen to anyone.

Colombian President Juana Manuel Santos has been stirring things up a bit.

Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos called on the U.S. and Europe on Saturday to break the taboo and start a global debate on the legalization of drugs, reiterating his country would not oppose drug decriminalization.

Santos and Nicaraguan writer and former vice-President Sergio Ramirez discussed the possibility of legalizing drugs and the impact on Latin America, during a debate at the literature and arts Hay Festival in the coastal city of Cartagena.

“I know that this can’t be the opinion of a state or the president of the republic, but I am a normal citizen, so I can [say it]. The solution is decriminalizing drugs. It must be decriminalized,” Ramirez was quoted by Colombia’s presidential website.

“I am not against this,” Santos responded. “And I am saying this as president of the republic. This decision would be acceptable for Colombia if taken by the entire world.”

That’s right. A sitting president.

The U.S. has responded:

The United States “respects,” but does not support Colombian President Santos’ call for a global debate on drug legalization, said U.S. Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman Tuesday.

Sherman, who is in Colombia to prepare U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to the Summit of the Americas in April, told newspaper El Tiempo that she “appreciated that presidents say what they think and of course I respect their points of view.”

OK. Polite, diplomatic. And the expected non-support for the idea.

However, “President Obama does not support legalization. What we do support is the intense work relation we have with Colombia and with President Santos with the aim of liberating us from this evil.”

Whoa. Liberating us from this evil? Sounds like a phrase from the Lord’s Prayer.

You see, the problem is that once you identify something as “evil,” you’ve completely shut off any notion of having a rational discourse or of analyzing options.

And, by definition, drugs are not and cannot be “evil.” Drugs are inanimate objects, incapable of moral action.

….

With more and more foreign leaders and former leaders calling for real change, it won’t be long before the U.S. position of drug policy becomes the outlier, and it becomes harder and harder for the U.S. to impose their war on the rest of the world.

Top cop says 12yo girl’s strip search justified

That’s the world in which we live — the world of the drug war.